Biggest Business Blunders of 2008

The biggest business mistakes of 2008? It might take you a minute to think of them. Surely anyone in the mortgage industry, perhaps the banking industry as well. Chrysler, Ford, and General Motors have certainly had to eat their own words a few times over.

Sure, most have noticed the mistakes made by the big guys, but small business owners should take note of the boo-boos so you do make the same mistakes yourself. I can’t imagine Microsoft sweeping in and offering to buy you out anytime soon, and you being a fool to say no, but you never know.

For my part, I certainly think Jerry Yang’s refusal to sell Yahoo! to Microsoft was an enormous faux pas. Pride is certainly hard to swallow, but it’s a lot harder to swallow when you can’t pay your bills and someone’s dangling a check in your face.

Channeling a the deadliest of sins (Yang chimes in on the ‘pride’ level, with notables from the Big 3 automakers being thrown in as well) here are a few other favorites from the MSN article:

Envy: J. Terrence Lanni, the former chairman and CEO of MGM Mirage, who, in a seemingly desperate act, lied on his resume about acquiring an MBA from the University of Southern California. The disgraced CEO resigned in November after the little white lie was discovered by the Wall Street Journal.

Sloth: Angelo Mozilo, the former CEO of Countrywide Financial, who carefully played dumb as his company continued to issue billions in subprime mortgage loans, nearly singlehandedly crushing the mortgage market.